I've read that Chevy has something calle BringGo which allows you to use your iPhone, Android, or Blackberry device to control the console's LCD screen and knobs.

What's interesting is that they put this in their smallest/cheapest cars (Spark, Sonic). I guess it makes sense. If you bring your own electronics, they don't have to provide any themselves.

I like this idea, though. These days, smartphone technology is moving so fast that a built-in GPS or 'smart radio' in a car is obsolete by the time the car is being sold. Makes more sense to link to an external device that can be upgraded as needed.

@junko. Quick answers to a quick question ;) Samsung? Maybe but I can't speak for them. iPhone? I think you already know the answer to that (it's 'no', probably "hell no")

MiraCast just replicates the screen display. MirrorLink does something similar but it also includes in the protocol how to send car controls to the phone, includes bi-derections audio transfer as well as authentication of smartphones. I can introduce you to the architect as there is enough there for a whole new article and he'll explain it better than I can.

First of all, cars really seem like small potatos here. If every one of the 15 million cars sold in the USA had some Android or Apple presence, that's what, a couple of extra days. Android outsold all versions of Windows in 2013 by close o a 3:1 ratio, and it's pretty much a lock to be the first applications platform to sell over a billion in a year, next year.
From the automakers' prespective, they want the hot tech, particularly whrn they can package $50 in parts and sell thay as a $350 option. But an option it must remain, simply because they don't want to give me a reason to not buy their car based on that tech. As an Android user, I'm not about to pay real money for an iPhone interface of any kind.
From what you wrote here, it certainly sounds like Google may have a sound approach using Miracast... that is a standard, not just a Google thing. And it's a losing game to build the whole computer into a car... I've upgraded my Android tablet twice in the last four years, and I know Apple users who buy one pad and one phone new every year. Locking the whole platform in would be as silly as locking a $4000 TV into the "smart" functionality of a $50 Roku box. But build in standards to extend my device's UI to the car, and the car's sensory network to the device, and you'll have something.

There is already a standards body for smartphone to car connectivity and that is the Car Connectivity Consortium which is creating a specification called MirrorLink. Its members include both smartphone and automakers and much work has been done to address the driver distraction issues.

@Sheetal, that would have been my original question. But we are beginning to see a host of new apps that drivers would find convenient in using while in their cars. Parking space finder is one of the prime apps.

There are other apps, such as allowing a driver to let their friends known "automatically" where he is driving. (You know, your friends are waiting for you at a restaurant, and keep texting you, "where are you?")

These apps are currently developed for either iOS or Android phones, assuming that drivers will bring their own smartphones into their cars. But letting drivers directly interact with their smartphones through their handsets' tiny screen can't be safe.

Hence, wouldn't it be nice if an in-vehicle system can somehow run that app, display it intelligently that fit on the in-vehicle screen?